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1、Some solutions in improving English oral skill for college studentsIntroduction As the development of society and the changes of the age, the “global village ”is becoming smaller and smaller and oral English is becoming more and more important and enjoys great popularity . Oral English communicative
2、 competence has become a hot topic in educational reform. Furthermore, mastering oral English skill develops into a compulsory course for contemporary people. It is largely due to the demand of the society. Since the implement of the opening and up policy, the exchange increases not only between rac
3、es and regions but also between the people from all walks, and colors, and different cultures in the five continents. Thus, it is the requirement of modern communicative notion to learn communication and cross-cultural communication, meanwhile, the supreme importance in cross-cultural communication
4、is oral English communication. To some extent, good mastering of oral English communicative competence is a necessity for college students in job hunting. No matter in the employment of the English teachers, office stuffs or company managers, oral English communicative competence goes priority. For
5、this reason, the improvement of college students oral English skills is extremely urgent, while concerning the improvement of college students oral English skill, we often hear the stock sentences, like “dont be shy, open your mouth,” “dont be afraid of making mistakes.” ect. except that ,is there a
6、ny effective route ? The answer is yes. If English learners want to improve their oral English skill, they should pay attention to the following aspects. First, knowing the existing problem. Besides paying attention to the standard pronunciation and intonation, the invoking of motivation is also ver
7、y important. Second, enlarging vocabulary and putting yourself in the context of situation. Third, using communicative strategies. We should not ignore the direct and effective role of body language in the communication. In connection with the fact that oral English is the weak point for most Chines
8、e English learners, cultural background should be given special emphasis. Although oral English communication seems to be an independent skill, it is concerned with every aspect of language ability. Therefore, in order to have a good grasp of a brilliant spoken English, you should not only have corr
9、ect and effective channels of practicing oral language but also pay out plenty of energy and sweat. This thesis has elaborated the methods of raising the ability of the college students oral English skill from six points and hopes to exert some influence on the improvement of college students oral E
10、nglish skill . I. Present situations of college students oral skillCollege students in our country have experienced their English learning from elementary school to middle school. Practice has proved that they have known 2000 words at least and generally, they have had a firm English basis, therefor
11、e, they would not have any great difficulties in communicating with others in English. However, through a lot of researches, it reveals that in our country there are still many college students of colleges and universities who cannot express themselves very well. (Li, 2004:107) Some conspicuous prob
12、lems as follows.1.1 Inexact pronunciation and intonation There exists a phenomenon that some college students cannot pronounce English exactly and most of them cannot use the standard intonation to express themselves. Take the word “houses” for example, many practices have proved that most college s
13、tudents wrongly pronounce hauziz into hausiz, obviously the latter is wrong. With inexact pronunciation, unexpected embarrassment can be caused. An oversea student who cant tell n from l and wanted to borrow a knife from the landlady and said “I want your life”. Its not difficult to imagine the pale
14、 face of the old lady and how astonished she was! Apart from inexact pronunciation, inexact intonation also exists. Intonation exerts great impact on expressing the speakers feeling and is mainly reflected in the stress of sentences and tone. Thus, the difference of intonation invokes extremely dist
15、inctive meaning. The rising tone at the end of an utterance is often used for asking yes-no questions and politeness or surprise, whereas the falling tone sometimes leads to rudeness and abruptness. For example, “she is a baby doctor”. In this sentence, if “baby” is stressed, it just expresses the l
16、iterary meaning. If both “baby” and “doctor” are stressed, it indicates that she is an inexperiencent doctor. The common expressions such as “Good morning” “Good afernoon” “Goodbye” in daily life is in falling tone for greeting and rising tone for farewells. 1.2 Narrow knowledge scope It is easy to
17、understand that if one has a narrow English knowledge scope, then he or she maybe has a limited knowledge horizon in expressing their ideas, which would indirectly affect the communication content, the fluency and accuracy of expression. On the one hand, if one wants to express his or her opinions b
18、ut he or she maybe does not know how to use the proper English expression, this may hamper the mutual understanding; on the other hand, if ones knowledge scope is so limited, then what he or she expressed in communication is monotonous and uninteresting to some extent. Therefore, it is important to
19、broaden ones horizon, especially in English knowledge. 1.3 Ineffective expressing ability A survey carried out in a college reveals that college students language output is slow when they express themselves in conversation and a lot of words used in a wrong way and utterances expressed in an inappro
20、priate situation. (Li, 2004:107) Thus, from the above accounts, it is necessary to think that what the real reason is for college students oral skill under the current situation.II. Factors influencing college students oral English skill Certainly, there are many reasons influencing college students
21、 oral ability, the following two are the main factors worth discussing.2.1 Internal factorsFrom philosophical perspective, the internal factor is things foundation, which is the source and dynamic when things are in the process of development, which regulates the main trend of things development. So
22、 the internal factor is the main one in doing things, by the same token, this would be the main reason in learning English.2.1.1 Lack of motivation Psychologists argue that lacking motivation or not having a clear goal is the main factor baffling students oral skill. Most students do not take Englis
23、h oral skill seriously and just believe that it is good enough to pass the exam. Under this decadent perspective, students cannot have the aspiration to exert themselves in oral expression and communication. Just as some psychologists see that if one lacks the learning motivation, any academic resea
24、rch cannot occur. Then lacking the motivation of improving oral skill, the competence of oral expression also cannot be improved. (Ai, 2002:93)2.1.2 Psychological barriers in oral communicationIt is inevitable that when students speaking English some of them may feel nervous at the beginning. Howeve
25、r, it is pessimistic that because students are afraid of making mistakes and thus speaking less and less English, even dare not speak one word in class, obviously, this way is not good enough to improve oral skill. “Practice makes perfect”. 2.1.3 The impact of ones mother tongueTo Chinese college st
26、udents, English is the second language, there is great difference between English and Chinese, such as in pronunciation, sentence pattern, culture background, taboo and so on. Certainly, those differences cannot be eliminated easily. Thus, in expressing English, college students have to notice these
27、 problems and try to avoid making mistakes as hard as possible.2.2 External factorsThere exists many external factors which influence students oral skill, the following two are typical in English oral teaching. 2.2.1 Exam-oriented education modelAt present, many foreign language educators, experts a
28、nd scholars have imposed a lot of practical comments and suggestions about reforming college Englishs education model. However, the exam-oriented education modal is still existing which has a strong influence in academic degree and scores. And a few universities and colleges take the pass rate of CE
29、T as the unique measurement, mistaking students taking the CET exam as the weight-bearing point. Its self-evident that some universities and colleges dont take the enthusiasm of practicing English oral skill seriously. On the contrary, some universities and colleges force students to do many exercis
30、es in “paper” materials, attach importance to the writing ability and hardly encourage students to improve their English oral skill. This behavior is a typical reflection of the exam-oriented education, which runs counter to nowadays English teaching. (Li, 2003:100) 2.2.2 Limited communication envir
31、onment For Chinese college students, the acquisition of English is formed in the environment of taking the Chinese as their mother tongue, they have little chance using English to communicate in their daily life in general. It seems that the English oral class is the only place where students can op
32、en their mouths to speak English and in most cases, the English conversation is organized in a nominal form between teachers and students or students and students. Obviously the communication environment is limited and rigid, so it is inevitable some students may be lacking of courage: afraid of mak
33、ing a mistake or afraid of being laugh at. It is thus clear that, the communication environment is limited and rigid for college students to develop their oral skill. “There is at least 30-40 students in an English class due to the College Expansion, so it is difficult to improve students oral skill
34、 in this circumstance”. (Ai, 2002:94) Nevertheless, it is emergent to change the situation and improve students English oral skill, practically this is a hot question worth discussing.III. Methods of improving college students English oral skill In English teaching, many methods have been carried ou
35、t to improve college students oral skill, while the effective ways maybe the following six ones, certainly with the teaching development, some better methods will be applied in the future.3.1 Cultivating students interests in expressionsMany practices show that students interests are the main elemen
36、t in learning knowledge. So the same as speaking English, only let students discover their interests in speaking English, English teaching and oral training would have a new look. In details, teachers can use classroom activities, such as group conversation, story-telling, performance-playing, to cr
37、eate chances for students to practice their English oral skill and let them have a feeling of success and gradually students would form the habit of speaking English.So, it needs the joint effort of the teacher and the student in improving students oral skill.3.1.1 Raising their self-confidence “In
38、the period of traditional English teaching, teachers usually pay attention to the main points of the texts and the form of English knowledge, however, neglecting students listening and speaking. As a result, this leads students shadow in their psychology”. (Li, 2004:107)Therefore, what teachers shou
39、ld do is to apply various teaching resources, stimulating students interests of speaking English, creating conditions to let them take part in different oral activities. Meanwhile, teachers should make positive comments as many as possible when students speaking English, this may attain the effort o
40、f indirect criticism and suggestion so as to safeguard students pride. Besides, students should adjust their motion and learning strategy to form a positive attitude in improving their English oral skill, finally erecting the self-confidence of speaking English. 3.1.2 Correcting errors in specific s
41、ituations “English teachers should know that making mistakes in the process of learning foreign language is a natural phenomenon, so teachers most important task is to help and encourage students opening their mouths to speak English to achieve the greatest amount of practical exercises ”.(Li, 2001:
42、91)In practice, teachers do introduce amount of English information in class so as to increase the listening and speaking activities for students. And in the process of activities, teachers often pay much attention to what students said, even every word and sentence, this way is good for students to
43、 some extent. However, once finding any errors in pronunciation, intonation and grammar, they will correct the errors immediately, evidently this action is not good enough, it can break not only students logical thinking, but destroy the integrated degree of expression. If things like this occurred
44、many times, students would be afraid of speaking English so much and gradually they would lose confidence in expressing their ideas in the future.Errors should be dealt in its specific situation. When students express their ideas freely, the errors should not be listed one by one, especially in the
45、process of speaking, because at that moment to exchange ideas is the most important purpose. In fact, the big error in speaking English is that students seldom speaking English and daring not to speak English. Li Gang argues that students can correct their errors with the development of their langua
46、ge competence. (Li, 2001:91)3.1.3 Creating student- centered classIn teaching, teachers should recognize students personal discrepancy and carry out different teaching methods according to students personality, namely, “do with a definite purpose”. For example, the requirement to the extrovert stude
47、nt who is active and has a quick response should be strict and let them to speak rightly, exactly; on the contrary, the introvert student response slowly, teachers should encourage them and cultivate their good habits of speaking English. “Whether the oral class is successful or not, the key point i
48、s that teachers should know who is the center in class”. (Li, 2001:91)Undoubtedly, students is the real center and the teaching departure in class, teachers can organize classroom activities, determining the teaching task, answering question and so on. Like the director, the play can only be performed by actors, so the class only be performed by students. 3.2 Learning “listening” before “speaking”Since students have had interests in speaking English, then what is the efficient way for them to have a good oral skill? To listen English! Many facts have proved that through listening students ca
